>I think you may be underestimating the number of takedowns that are impossible to appeal. Maybe. I have never received one, nor do I know anyone who has. I a

>I think you may be underestimating the number of takedowns that are impossible to appeal. Maybe. I have never received one, nor do I know anyone who has. I am also very careful about what I upload. I have paid a lot of money in fees to license content when it’s been necessary, and otherwise I would rather not take chances. Despite that, on one memorable occasion I had to fight it out with Sony Music. That dispute almost went to court, and I had a university’s First Amendment legal clinic defending my side. Fortunately, Sony Music backed down. That wasn’t fun, though. >That description seems slanted to the most favorable possible case for Sony and YouTube, there. A very common case is "used two seconds of footage for fair use commentary on it", or "used no footage at all, and the claim is a mistake", and those claims can't be appealed either. You might be right, though I was trying to describe the reason I think those contracts exist. I wasn’t saying anything definite, nor was I saying they are a good thing, though I probably implied it. I do have personal experience having my company’s content infringed by a YouTube channel run by someone in Vietnam, and who filed a counter-notification in response to a takedown notice, despite their infringement being blatant. Suing someone overseas is ridiculously expensive, and they were probably judgment-proof anyway. It sucked. Regarding your other point, I don’t think it’s possible to have Content ID automatically match audio that is less than ten seconds long. It used to be, but it’s not anymore.